Naissance
by bj
Summary: He'd never considered becoming a New Yorker. Casey/Dan.


it's: naissance  
by: bj  
in sum: he'd never considered becoming a new yorker.  
label: casey. casey/new york. just kidding. casey/dan.  
rating: pg13. sexual situations and a couple bad words. ooh.  
sissies: the whole damn thing is based on the pilot and "thespis."  
legalities: don't own, don't sue.  
i say: for the occasion of oro's sixteenth birthday. i wanted to write you an uncon, but no one would play that game with me. i suspect you've tired them out. love you anyway. usted esta muy glam.  
and say again: i owe a depth of gratitude to newyork.com. probably normal people would not be afraid to ask questions of other people they know who actually live there. i apologise profusely if i got anything wrong. i have never been, just read all the books and seen all the movies.  
muse: "night movement-new york" by carl sandburg, in the book "steel and smoke."

  
**naissance**

1. one of the most popular and spectacular venues in the city.

Radio City Christmas Spectacular. "What's so spectacular about it?" Casey says, reading the tickets. The seven-thirty show, so Charlie won't be up that late. He's faintly disturbed that the anniversary celebrations have escalated from beer and taped games in the office to. Well. The Radio City Christmas Spectacular. With his son.

"The Rockettes, for one thing," Danny says.

"The Rockettes are spectacular?"

"You ever seen the Rockettes?"

"No."

"You've lived in this city, with me, this long, and you have not seen the Rockettes."

"That seems to be the case, yes."

"You haven't lived, Casey, until you've seen the Rockettes."

"Do they dress in little Mrs. Claus costumes?"

"They did last year."

"And it was spectacular."

"It was most definitely a spectacle. They do this kicking thing you would not believe, my repressed Protestant friend." Danny leans over the desk and taps the tickets. "Front row left of center. Best view in the house."

Casey swallows his laughter with some effort. "I don't know if I want Charlie partaking in this sort of holiday celebration."

Danny grins wickedly. "Oh, I think he's old enough to enjoy the show in the spirit in which it is intended."

  
(charlie will be flushed and sugar-high when they get to casey's apartment. it will be nearly eleven-thirty before he finally settles down, breathing deep and quiet. casey will close his bedroom door and look down the hall, danny will be standing uncertainly nonchalant in the living room, within grabbing distance of his coat and scarf and toque. there will be something craggy in casey's throat, he will not be able to swallow without pain. his hands will feel unbearably empty. he will cock his head at danny and in casey's bedroom danny will smile. like this is fun, like this is a game. casey will curse himself for weakness, will hate that he can't say no even when his son is fifteen feet away.)

  


2. the first integrated office complex in the world.

In the second break Casey changes "luck" to "fortune" on a whim and turns to Danny. "What are you doing after the show?"

"I was thinking I might go look at the tree."

"The tree?"

"The Christmas tree."

"You got a tree?"

"The tree around the corner, Casey. The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Possibly the most famous Christmas tree in the world."

"I thought you hated that thing."

"I never said that."

"You did."

"When did I say that."

"You said it last Christmas, Danny, and the Christmas before, and basically every Christmas we've been here."

"Seven Christmases."

"That long?"

"Been on the air seven years next summer, Casey."

Dave calls thirty seconds. Casey says, "Doesn't seem like seven years."

"Time flies when you're having fun," Danny says. "Want to come with me?"

"Where?"

"To look at the tree, Casey. You've got to start paying attention; we're doing live television here."

"I think you should know I'm not going to dignify that with a response."

"You just did. Coming or not?"

He thinks of standing in the snow staring upwards, a warm paper cup in his hands. Danny's foggy breath beside him. "Wild horses could not keep me away."

  
(casey will draw his cock out of danny's mouth. he will wonder when this started, why he can't remember. he will shudder when he is folded up in these arms. and he will be held, this is familiar, this is why he does it. he will look over danny's shoulder at the red-orange-green shadows on the bedroom wall. think of how christmas lights reflect in people's eyes like house fires.)

  


3. a former whaler opened a small store at west fourteenth street in 1857.

Casey takes a Saturday to buy Christmas presents. Usually he gets things here and there for about six weeks beforehand, but this year he wants it to be an expedition. He wants to provide symbols of his respect and affection for eight people within a nine-hour time span.

Because he's always assumed it's what people who live in New York do, he goes to Macy's. The caryatids are classical and scornful, draped in stone, blind eyes. His are caught by a plaque near the door. It commemorates, he reads, the deaths of Isidor and Rosalie Straus on April 15, 1912, aboard the RMS Titanic.

Well, he thinks, that's history for you. Right there at the front door.

In housewares he picks up a set of martini glasses with pebbly sea green bases and a small box of glass olive spears. He looks for a long time at a matched pair of small and large beer mugs. He grabs a large white latte cup to replace Kim's. She still doesn't know he broke it during west coast Stanley Cup coverage. A large plain silver platter, Natalie said she was worried about not having a plate big enough for the turkey.

A ship in a bottle for Jeremy. Last year it was a motion-activated singing fish. He's not entirely certain how the nautical theme happened, but they both seem to enjoy it. A ship in a bottle, SS MESSAGE painted in tiny white letters on the bright blue bow. Fine leather driving gloves for Isaac, for his new golf cart, which goes with his new condo in Miami. There will be affectionate ass-kicking, he knows.

He picks out six pairs of thick, warm wool socks for his father, thinking of him standing ankle-deep in mud, gumboots around his overalls, leaning on his hoe. Organic gardening is more popular than Isaac thinks. And Casey travels for a very long time to reach the jewellery department. He runs his fingers over a dozen different pearl necklaces before choosing one he thinks will rest perfectly on his mother's thin-skinned collar bones.

More socks, for Charlie, and underwear; boxers because he's thirteen now, Dad, come on. Striped polo shirts he's pretty sure are cool, half the interns were wearing them last summer. A Brooklyn jacket. A heavy grey sweater for skating on his parents' pond. Come to think of it, new skates. And since he's in sporting goods now anyway, a tennis racket. How Charlie can be good at tennis and not baseball is a mystery to Casey. It's all hand-eye coordination, he'd complained to Danny and never ever to Charlie, what's the problem.

Since he's in sporting goods now anyway, Danny. He looks through golf clubs, but he's sure he'd just end up buying the totally wrong kind. Golf balls? No. Danny is particular about golf balls. Danny is also particular about baseball bats, but Casey knows he prefers wood to metal, ash to anything, no fibreglass, a wide pommel, a heavy head. Nothing in the racks feels right to him; he knows they'll feel like blasphemy to Danny.

He thinks maybe a new mitt, but Danny loves his ancient leather thing, sheepskin lining stained light brown with sweat and dirt and oil. Loves the way it creaks and creases. He wants to get it signed by Eddie Murray, he's said for about nine years.

So what, Casey thinks. What does one buy for the man who has extreme sentimental attachment to everything he owns or will potentially own? A couple extra therapy sessions a month, maybe, Casey thinks, and smiles to himself.

He shakes his head and starts heading for the check-out. He's pretty sure he's facing north, and that the exit is somewhere in that direction. Store this size, probably there's more than one exit. Pushing his cart past a FIFA licensed merchandise display; he shakes a fist in triumph. Grabs an official regulation ball painted with Brazil's colours, stamped with Pele's signature.

In the cab, he stuffs his credit card receipt in his pocket without looking at it, though the amount is already echoing in his head, and thinks that New Yorkers must not do all their Christmas shopping at Macy's.

  
(danny will refuse to open his gift after the office party, he will toss it into the corner of his living room, onto a deep pile of presents. i know what it is, danny will say, and i don't want to be pissed at you three days before christmas. peace and joy, danny will say. casey will grin and sip his eggnog and look at the little menorah sitting on a small side table between the couch and the wall. it will be partially lit, three tea lights glowing strong and steady in blue glass cups. danny will step very close in front of him and say he must brush his teeth before anything remotely fun happens, because eggnog is liquid shit on the first go-round, never mind sloppy seconds. casey will not mention the fact that danny pressed the glass into his hand five minutes after they got here.)

  


4. thus began construction of what was hoped to be the largest cathedral in the world.

"I don't think I ever said I hated the tree," Danny says. They are waiting in line outside St. John the Divine. It is eleven o'clock on Christmas Eve, and part of Casey is upset that he's not on the air right now. It seems wrong that they are not working, but Dana said that Isaac said that Trager said at the fourth quarter lunch meeting that everybody gets the twenty-forth and twenty-fifth off this year. Danny starting planning immediately and Casey is not complaining. Not when Danny is driving and Danny is buying the coffee. Not when it serves as a good distraction from the fact that Charlie is in North Carolina with Lisa and Lisa's parents and Lisa's friend Oliver.

"You did. You said it's an eyesore, a drain on natural resources, and I think there was something about being forced to publicly recognise a holiday you've never celebrated." Casey sips from his coffee and shuffles forward a few feet as the line moves. "Which I find especially funny, considering we're standing in line an hour early for a Catholic mass at eleven o'clock on Christmas Eve."

"You said you wanted to come."

"I did and I do. That's not the point. The point is, Danny, that you're not Catholic, and neither am I."

"The point is, Casey, that we both chose to come here, and this mass is being conducted indoors, without great public fanfare and network coverage."

"So you'd feel differently if we were at Yankee Stadium, drinking the new Peppermint Coke while NBC sticks microphones in our faces."

Danny rolls his eyes, concedes, "Yes." He takes Casey's coffee and holds it against his reddened cheeks before drinking.

Casey looks up and up and up at the resilient stone. Arches and the glass seems black in the darkness. "It's a nice church," he says.

"Indeed it is. Nice inside, too. You ever been inside?"

"No." Casey takes his coffee back. "You?"

"Yeah. I went last year."

"Good show?"

"Very very good," Danny says. They move forward a little more, Danny blows warm air into his hands. "It'd be better if there was an intermission and maybe a prop comic."

"I'd definitely consider petitioning the Vatican if I were you."

  
(when danny is undressing on the other side of the bed, and they both smell heavy with incense, casey will think of how silently danny cried. a small girl in orioles red, her voice like a nightingale soaring through o holy night. and how danny shrugged his hand off, put an inch between them in the crowd. here, casey will draw him up between his thighs without protest. he will kiss danny's cheek, taste the salt, say it was a good show. o night, he will think as danny lays him back, o night divine.)

  


5. the most recognisable intersection in the world.

"New York at night, my friend." Danny gestures out the office window, the geometric scales of skyscraper lights.

"Yes, Danny."

"I'm just saying-"

"I know what you're saying," Casey says, drawing his tie up. "And I'm not going to Times Square for New Year's."

"It's not the same, watching from home."

"No. There's no pick pocketing or communicable diseases at my home. Nor is there the possibility of being trampled to death by a rabid mob of Dick Clark fans at my home."

Danny grins at the image and Casey tries not to smile back. "Your home is very boring, Casey."

"So you've said on many occasions."

"Still. For all the boredom, it's a nice place."

"Well, I like it."

"It suits you."

"You're saying I'm boring."

"No, I'm not saying that at all."

"You're implying it."

Danny shrugs into his suit jacket. "Perhaps."

"I'm not going to Times Square for New Year's, Danny."

"Okay."

"Really."

"I said okay." Danny holds open the office door. "Let's go."

"You're not going to try to sell me?"

"Nah."

Casey waits for the other shoe to drop as they walk through the newsroom. When it doesn't, he says sceptically, "Really?"

"There's no point, is there? You don't want to be sold."

"No. I do not."

"I'm not going to try to sell you."

"Good," Casey says, though he knows this is not the end of it.

  
(he will sit on his very boring natural linen futon watching dick clark's ageless face on his very boring twenty-six inch television, not searching the very unboring crowd for danny, though he will fully acknowledge his desire to do so. he will not quite be able to believe there was no sales pitch. he will wait for the buzzer patiently. at one a.m. he will turn the tv off and put his coat on. he'll think he's probably insane for going outside in new york city on new year's for fuck's sake, but danny was right and. it felt strange and wrong to be alone at midnight. he will open the door of his building and be halfway down the stairs before he sees. danny. standing at the curb. a sparkly green plastic top hat in his hands, a noisemaker sticking out of his coat pocket. confetti scattered across his shoulders. a lonely look, a strange and wrong look on his face. hey, casey will say. hey, danny will say. happy new year, danny, casey will say. in the stairwell, danny's mouth will taste like champagne and on the couch his skin will taste like time.)

  


5. the first bridge constructed using steel.

In the morning Casey wakes up thinking about the Brooklyn Bridge. Or, not really the bridge. Not really the cold rumpled spot on the other side of the bed, either. The thought of the space where it wasn't before it was. The thought of where the Brooklyn Bridge would be built. Because some things aren't always, some things have to be built before they can be used.

He goes there; he stands on the pedestrian deck with its useless yellow stripe. He reads the history plaques and he knows all of it already, he's heard it at least three hundred times during various incarnations of the New York Renaissance. He's stood right here and listened to Danny recite the marker plaques verbatim.

The bridge was conceived by Mr. Roebling while on a ferry crossing the Hudson. He died a week after having his foot crushed between a ferry and its slip. Different ferry, years later. The bridge was already begun. Washington Roebling, the son, he carried it forward. He was severely paralysed by the bends after surfacing too quickly from one of the bridge's extremely deep caissons. The Widow Roebling supervised the completion of the project, guided by her bed-ridden son.

He's never been to Staten Island without Danny, never been on the subway without Danny, never been to either of the Guggenheims or MoMA without Danny. Not that he would have gone to museums on his own, but really. This could, he thinks, explain why he feels like a tourist after seven years.

He'd never considered becoming a New Yorker. Just assumed Danny would keep being that and he could keep being Casey from Minnesota. He doesn't like shopping at Macy's, he doesn't like walking down Fifth Avenue, he hates musicals though he doesn't mind dance halls so much anymore, he is faintly disgusted by the litter and the smog and the greasy air at noon in July. He'd never considered that this city would ever be anything like a home. Just a place where he works, live from New York it's Sports Night. So it's been seven years and he is, really, lost without a GPS.

Or Danny, who's actually from Connecticut but says he was a dead stupid child before moving here at the ripe and tender age of twelve. The metal of the historical plaques is cold and slightly grimy under Casey's fingers. His eyes are very dry, the wind blows indifferent gusts across the deck.

West, the river widens and opens out, ready to meet the Atlantic. The Pacific, he thinks, does not look nearly so inevitable nor so large, the coast straight and wild, no sophistication in the construction. He looks south, the low hunch of Brooklyn, and the distant jealous span of the Manhattan Bridge at left. It is secondary on maps, it is marked in grey where the Brooklyn is in yellow, it is named in smaller type. North, the Emerald City skyline of Manhattan. He eats a hot dog, barely registering the mustard's sting on his chapped lips, and considers the cliché.

He wonders if there's a writer anywhere who could describe the black etch against cold sky without using a cliché. If maybe it's been written about so many times by so many natives and foreigners that there are no new words. That there are not even second-hand ones.

He thinks there's really no point in trying. He'd rather just stand here and look, and know it is indescribable. Beyond him to describe.

Washington Roebling, Casey thinks, drawing his coat as close as possible in the biting wind. What a name.

  
(in the office casey will want to tell danny that he thinks he might be having a new york renaissance. he will think to himself that it's really more of a naissance, and he will run through the present and future imperfect conjugations of the verb. naitre. danny will burst in with the january first issue of the times and challenge casey to a putting contest. new tradition, danny will say, because if you're not going to be a new yorker you've at least got to appreciate golf.)

  


End.


End file.
